


every doubt we had is coming undone

by strangetowns



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Trans Character, Implied/Referenced Mental Health Issues, Implied/Referenced Outing, M/M, Swearing, canon adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 11:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18964717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetowns/pseuds/strangetowns
Summary: David touched his palm to the surface of the wood, and closed his own eyes. To be on the other side where he’d been just moments before; to be lying there next to the boy, hands and feet lined up together and nearly touching. To reach inside his mouth and pry those two words loose from his throat, wrap his fingers around them and pull them out and cast them aside like so much refuse. To look at him, then, not even to touch - just look. To stay until the silence became a comfort again. And then to stay just because he could.It was an impossible dream. He wanted to laugh at his own absurdity, or maybe cry. Maybe both.Instead, he opened his eyes, and straightened.And then he left.-David comes out to Matteo. In a different universe, this is what comes after.





	every doubt we had is coming undone

**Author's Note:**

> I struggle a lot with describing what this fic is tbqh but I've basically been thinking of it as "canon adjacent" - all of the scenes that happen in canon pretty much still happen, and even though most of the material in this fic didn't actually happen in canon I'd like to think that in a timeline very slightly to the left of canon maybe it could have. Basically I just wanted to write a version of episode 8 with maybe, like, 20% more communication?????? You can be the judge of if I succeeded with that lol.
> 
> Warnings for: a fair dose of angst (mostly coming from implied/referenced mental health issues; and quick note that the portrayal of mental health stuff and the trans experience in this fic is entirely based on my own experiences and not meant to be representative of everyone's experiences!!!), and an allusion to the outing scene at the end of episode 8. It doesn't happen on screen and I keep details pretty vague but, you know. Just in case. If there's anything else I've missed let me know!
> 
> Thank you so so SO much to [Lyds](http://boxesfullofthoughts.tumblr.com/), [Crystal](http://pronouncingitwang.tumblr.com/), [Arin](http://arindwell.tumblr.com/), and the various other people i harassed about this for your help and your insight. This fic is inspired by "[Two Of Us On The Run](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHXYn9MCa08)" by Lucius. If you want some mood music to this fic, would highly recommend giving it a listen!

_Saturday 10:35_

“I should go,” David said, and Matteo’s face didn’t move; for a drawn-out moment, the entire universe was still.

It was the silence that hurt the most, as it turned out. He almost felt betrayed at the revelation. Because this was a silence that he had so often found an unspeakable comfort in, the way it enveloped him and softened the ragged edges inside of him so that he could almost pretend he lived in it, a world within a world where he never had to explain himself, never had to fill the air with useless, meaningless words. Where he could exist as nothing more or less than himself, alongside someone who knew innately what that meant. And it was this silence - Matteo’s silence - that now threatened to drown him.

As if the weight of the ocean itself was crushing him, suddenly it was hard to breathe. He couldn’t bear to look at Matteo’s face anymore, into his eyes that for once he found impossible to read. So he tore his gaze away, because he had to, and stood.

“Call me,” he said, “if you want.”

Because in the end that was what mattered, wasn’t it? What did anyone care what David thought about it? That was not important, nor had it ever been important; he’d learned that long ago.

He left the room and closed the door behind him. His hand lingered on the knob, for some unfathomable reason. The air around him trembled; or maybe that was just his heart, maybe that was just his treacherous lungs. Or maybe there was nothing inside him at all - maybe the silence had carved him hollow. Maybe he was glad for it.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

He pulled it out, and looked down.

**Matteo  
** _I’m sorry_

He leaned his forehead against the door. He couldn’t move, all of a sudden, couldn’t think - couldn’t speak. Inside his head was the image of a boy flung back on his bed, phone pressed to his chest and head tipped back toward the ceiling. His eyes were the saddest David had ever seen. But this, at least, was nothing new. They’d been the first thing he’d noticed, after all. It had felt like looking into a mirror.

He touched his palm to the surface of the wood, and closed his own eyes. To be on the other side where he’d been just moments before; to be lying there next to the boy, hands and feet lined up together and nearly touching. To reach inside his mouth and pry those two words loose from his throat, wrap his fingers around them and pull them out and cast them aside like so much refuse. To look at him, then, not even to touch - just look. To stay until the silence became a comfort again. And then to stay just because he could.

It was an impossible dream. He wanted to laugh at his own absurdity, or maybe cry. Maybe both.

Instead, he opened his eyes, and straightened.

And then he left.

-

_Saturday 11:22_

Laura was sleeping on the couch when David got back to the apartment, curled up around herself with her arms tucked under her side. She stirred as the door swung shut behind him, lifting her head to blink up at him.

“Morning,” she said.

He toed off his shoes and placed them by the door. “Morning.”

He turned to her, intending to say something, but when he caught her gaze - saw how soft it was - he realized he didn’t know what that something was. And so he stood there in front of the doorway, helplessly; and he had never felt so keenly aware of the emptiness in his hands, how he held nothing in them, nothing at all, and nothing inside the cavity in his chest, as well. He’d given his whole heart away, this morning - he had nothing left inside of him to hold onto.

Laura pushed herself up off the couch. “Did you tell him?”

He cast his eyes to the ground; could barely even bring himself to nod.

And he waited for her response, dreaded it, in fact, because she was going to call Matteo an asshole, she was going to say David deserved so much better than him, and he didn’t have it in him to bear angry words like that, not like this, not right now. Laura’s rage when it came was solid and alive and real, and often he drew strength from it, comforted himself in its protection; but he was certain that in this very second it could only sweep him away from where he stood.

In the end, though, she didn’t say anything like that. She got up from the couch, and walked over to him. She threw her arms around him, crushing him to her tightly.

And the breath left his lungs. And he didn’t know how to get it back; he only knew how to fall.

“I’m proud of you,” Laura said into his ear.

_What the fuck would you do that for,_ David thought but didn’t say. He didn’t want to hear Laura’s answer.

She squeezed him even tighter, and somehow he knew she heard him anyway.

“You’re the bravest boy in the world,” she whispered.

They were beautiful words, as he knew they would be. Laura’s words were always beautiful. Too beautiful for a boy like him. Still, he was tired, so tired his very bones ached with it. He no longer had the strength to resist beauty, not when the hungriest, most desperate part of him craved it, and even on a better day that part of him was a relentless storm he was always fighting a losing battle against. And he was so damn tired of fighting. Selfishly, he wanted the beauty of this sentence to wrap him up in its warmth like a new sweater; wanted to cup it in his bare hands, hold it close to the waning fire of his heart. Wanted to feed the words to it like kindling so that it would stay alive.

And so he squeezed his eyes shut, and he clutched the fabric of her shirt tightly in his fists, like a child; and for a moment, just for a moment, he let himself pretend that he believed her.

It was almost enough.

-

_Sunday 12:41_

Laura hadn’t wanted to leave David alone today. There was a part of him - the selfish part of him, hungry for her warmth, her quiet brand of comfort - that wanted to accept that at face value, to appreciate what lengths she’d go to in order to be there for him. But there was another part of him, and it was not insignificant - it had never been - that chafed at the very idea. No one should have to pause their lives for him, no one should have to waste their time on such a meaningless sacrifice like that. And regardless, he didn’t need them to. He could take care of his own damn self.

So this was the part of him that he allowed to win - most days it didn’t need his help, anyway. He told her she should go to work, he would be fine by himself, and besides didn’t she want to keep the lights on? Did she want him to freeze to death? It wasn’t a very funny joke but still she laughed and ruffled his hair and agreed to go, which relieved him at the same time as it ashamed him. To have someone in his life listen to him without protest even when they knew he was lying seemed like too much power to have, and he knew he used it far too much.

Still, David didn’t feel so bad that he’d take it back, so he sat on the couch and watched as Laura ran around the flat to get ready for her shift, always a spectacle to behold if only because Laura was one of the worst procrastinators he knew. She’d lost her uniform in a pile of laundry she hadn’t yet done, and as she was rummaging through her belongings for her shirt she was also trying to pull her long hair into a semi-presentable bun, and as she was doing that she was also frantically scanning the apartment for her keys. David tossed her his own - bad idea as it probably was, he didn’t think he had the strength to leave the apartment today - and she thanked him profusely as she dashed into the kitchen to scarf down a quick lunch. At some point amidst the chaos he managed to doze off, head tucked into the crook of his elbow and legs folded uncomfortably under him. He hadn’t meant to - he’d wanted to say good bye. But when he opened his eyes, neck cramped and feet tingling like static, the apartment was silent and still. There was a cup of green tea sitting on the floor next to the couch, steam still emanating from the surface of the cloudy liquid, and an orange post-it note - Laura’s favorite color - stuck to its side.

_Sweet dreams, dumbass._

David traced his thumb over the Sharpie-scrawled words. He loved her handwriting, the cramped lines of her letters, the crooked slant of them across the piece of paper. The surface of the mug was hot against the tip of his finger, but not in an unpleasant way. He wanted to pick it up and hold it with both his hands, wanted to soak up the warmth through his skin and memorize the feeling of the ceramic against the cracks of his palms; wanted to hoard it all for himself and never let it go. These days it seemed all he wanted was more warmth.

He wanted such stupid things, sometimes.

His phone buzzed against his leg. Laura, he guessed, sending him some sort of reminder of a chore that needed doing around the flat, or maybe something he needed to pick up from the store. He pulled his phone out to read the message.

**Matteo  
** _Hey_

One word. Three letters. No punctuation. David’s entire mouth went dry.

His heart was doing something peculiar in his chest. Like it’d frozen over. Or come alive again.

He couldn’t tell.

For a long moment, David lay there and held his phone above his face, half-hoping it would buzz again, half-dreading it. But the screen went black and the phone was silent. And he realized it was up to him, now. Whether his phone would buzz again was up to him.

David turned his phone on and read the text again. He let his gaze linger on the name attached to it, the familiar and wondrous letters that made it. _Matteo_. And before he could quite stop it from happening his mind summoned the image of him before his eyes, so vivid and so clear it was almost like he was standing right in front of him. His hands tucked inside the pocket of his worn hoodie, his tangled hair hanging into his forehead in a way that made David wanted to brush it aside. And his eyes, his sad eyes that held inside them a whole ocean of quiet and desperate fear.

David knew what it was, because he had put it there himself.

He closed his eyes, and took in a bracing breath. And he knew what he was going to do.

**David  
** _Hey_

**Matteo  
** _How are you?_

**David  
** _OK. You?_

**Matteo**  
_Yeah  
I wanted to call you_

Past tense. The word burned itself into David’s eyes. So this was it, then. This was how it ended. That was what was echoing inside his head. It was a sound he was intimately familiar with; he’d heard it every day of his life.

He blinked. He made himself read the words again. Again and again. Every atom of his being was pulling at him, urging him to drop this, to end the conversation here before it could go down a path whose end he couldn’t see, or worse, a path whose end he could see all too well.

This panic clawing up his throat, sudden and inexplicable. He recognized it as if recognizing the shape of his own name. It came so frequently, swept over him like a raging fire mercilessly, relentlessly, until it left him ravaged and empty. And tired. God, he was so tired. Fighting it made him tired, too. But it lived inside of him, had lived there for as long as he could remember, and he couldn’t do anything about that. Fighting it wasn’t a choice, either. If he wanted to survive, that was what he had to do. Otherwise it would swallow him whole.

He breathed, in and out. His vision cleared. Five words, and this time he read them in Matteo’s voice and not his own. Matteo’s wasn’t like any of the voices inside his head. It was kind. It was forgiving. It said words with wells of meaning beneath their delicate surface. If David had said these words, he would have meant that he didn’t want to do it anymore.

But these words belonged to Matteo, so what they meant was something different.

And once he knew that, he knew what his answer had to be.

**David  
** _Why don’t you?_

**Matteo**  
_Don’t know  
I was worried, I guess_

**David  
** _Why?_

**Matteo  
** _Worried it wouldn’t be enough_

**David  
** _Is that why we’re texting right now?_

**Matteo  
** _I’m sorry_

These two words again. David hated them, hated how wrong they felt coming from Matteo. David didn’t want them, not from him. He wanted to learn how to say them himself.

There were a lot of things David didn’t know how to say.

**David  
** _It’s okay_

**Matteo**  
_No, it’s not  
I guess I just feel like if I fuck up here it’ll matter less_

**David  
** _You really think you’ll fuck up?_

**Matteo**  
_It’s kind of what I do  
I say stupid shit and it hurts the people I care about_

**David  
** _I don’t think the things you say are stupid._

His hands shook as he typed the words. He felt silly for it, a bit. It seemed like such a simple, easy thing to say. But it was the truth. And David had made himself hold the truth inside him for so long; letting go of it was something he was wholly unaccustomed to.

Matteo didn’t answer for a long while. David kept his thumb on the screen and watched as three dots appeared under his message, and disappeared, and appeared again. He watched this happen five times, until they turned into words.

**Matteo**  
_One day, though, I will say stupid things  
I just know it_

What was Matteo doing on the other end of this conversation, behind the pixelated words and the glowing phone screen? Was he out on his balcony, elbows leaned against the bannister and phone cradled carefully in his hands? Was he sprawled out on his chair, head tilted back and eyes closed? Was he curled up in bed, covers pulled up over his head to shield himself from the world? Was he somewhere else entirely, somewhere even David’s imagination couldn’t fathom touching?

It killed David, a little, that he couldn’t know.

**David  
** _Okay. So how about I tell you when the things you say are stupid?_

**Matteo  
** _Is that how it works?_

**David  
** _How what works?_

**Matteo  
** _You know_

And suddenly there was a lump in his throat, pulsing to the beat of his heart. It was hard to breathe around. He stared at the words, and stared. After a while the screen went black. He thumbed his phone back on and rolled over until he was lying on his stomach, and he couldn’t stop staring. He couldn’t quite believe this moment was happening to him right now. Couldn’t believe how quiet the house was; and how inside his own head it was even quieter.

Maybe the longer he stared at these words, the easier it would be to believe in them. Or maybe they would feel less and less real as time went by. He didn’t know. He just didn’t know.

**David**  
_I don’t know_ ****  
_I’ve never done this before_

**Matteo**  
_Me neither  
Not in a way that mattered_

He could hear the meaning of the words in Matteo’s voice, the soft shape of them in his mouth; so gentle it washed away all the voices inside of David that wanted to drown it out. It reached into every corner of him until it was the only thing that was inside of him, this fragile truth he wanted to protect within his own ribcage.

The truth was - this mattered; this actually mattered to Matteo. And he wanted it to matter.

David wanted it to matter, too. He couldn’t remember ever wanting something so much. And this time he couldn’t even bring himself to think it was stupid.

**Matteo  
** _Can you promise me something?_

David would promise Matteo the whole goddamn world, if only it was his to give.

**Matteo  
** _If I do say something stupid, promise me you won’t go without telling me_

David stared at the words. Stared and stared.

He couldn’t lie to Matteo. He was physically incapable of it. And so in the end he said nothing.

In the end, David had nothing to give.

Nothing at all.

-

_Monday 9:07_

David woke up feeling miserably unrested - more tired than he’d been when he’d closed his eyes the night before. He felt heavy with the weight of a bad dream lingering in his temples. As if the act of sleeping cost him more than it took to stay awake.

It was sorely tempting to spend today in a similar fashion to yesterday - shutting himself inside his room, speaking a word to no one at all. Still, routine was important, and those times he most wanted to abandon it were also the times he needed to stick to it the most. A counselor had told him that once, in a past life. He summoned up her words from the dregs of his memories, let them run around in circles inside his brain until they became a mantra he couldn’t ignore. And then he got out of bed.

No school today meant a day empty of a structure he could script a routine around, which to most might sound like a dream but to him sounded like a nightmare. It meant he had to work extra hard to make his day mean something, and today his body protested against his every effort. He didn’t want to eat so he forced down a banana and some water, even as it went thickly down in an uncomfortable way, because he knew he shouldn’t run on an empty stomach. Running wasn’t a thing he particularly wanted to do, either. It was a bit later than his usual time, because at this time of day there were already too many people out and about, too many eyes that could potentially catch sight of him, and besides he preferred the morning before the sun came up, he just did. The darkness that slowly gave itself over to light was one he’d always felt at home in.

Still, he had the feeling that not running would make him feel worse. So he laced up his shoes and put on his favorite playlist and took the route he always did. And indeed, by the time he circled back home he did feel better, pulsing adrenaline sending new life shooting into his veins, the soreness in his legs and shoulders and arms a vivid reminder that his body was real and he existed inside of it and he wanted to; he wanted to feel real. It wasn’t always he felt that way, and so this moment was all the more precious. Yes, he was glad he’d gone for a run, after all. He was glad, ultimately, to fight this battle against himself, and to win it for once.

He was actually hungry now, too. A small blessing. He made a bigger breakfast - a bowl of his favorite muesli; a stack of toast with blackberry jam; his tallest glass of orange juice - and took his time with it. He made himself take his time with it, because sometimes it seemed like he didn’t know how to, and that was tiring too, the act of always moving forward and never looking back. And maybe he was tired of feeling tired.

After he finished with breakfast, David washed the used dishes in the sink with a worn out yellow sponge and stacked them up carefully on the plastic drying rack. He put everything he’d taken out back into the cupboards in their proper places, where they belonged. He swept the kitchen floor and then the dining room floor and then the living room floor, because Laura would probably appreciate it when she got back tonight, and because he needed something to do with his hands, needed something to do with this long stretch of minutes and hours before him, and the good thing about cleaning was that it never felt like a waste of time.

Before he left the living room, he tugged the gauzy curtains over the window into place. Ribbons of sunlight still seeped in through the blinds, painting the walls of the room in warm, golden stripes. It’d been a beautiful morning; it would be a beautiful day. The thought calmed him.

To the shower, now. Heat against his scalp - fragrant soap against his aching limbs. Cleaning his body of sweat and grime and filth, scrubbing every crack of his skin until he felt reborn. He inhaled, and filled his lungs with steam.

Water dripped down the back of his neck as he stepped out of the shower. He pulled on his most comfortable sweatpants and started to dry his hair with a towel. What to do with the rest of his day? After lunch he’d probably have to spend the whole afternoon on studying for Friday’s exam, but he wanted to save at least a few minutes for his sketchbook. Some days it was harder to get something out than others, but sketching was the one daily habit he was proud of and he wanted to keep it. As he thought this over he reached for his toothbrush, and then his phone started buzzing.

And it didn’t stop.

David picked it up and felt his heart stumble in his chest when he saw the name attached to the call. For a fleeting moment he considered letting his phone buzz on, considered letting it go to voicemail so that he could deal with it later or perhaps not at all. He hadn’t prepared himself for this. Hadn’t had time to even think about what he wanted to say. He’d been careful, so careful in writing the script for today; he hadn’t included this.

He closed his eyes; conjured up the image of Matteo’s face, as he said, _What, are you going to run again?_

He wanted to. He always wanted to.

He opened his eyes, and brought the phone to his ear.

“Hey,” Matteo said.

The greeting sounded so soft in Matteo’s voice David could hardly stand it.

“Hey,” David said.

“I… Um... ” Now there was something hesitant in his words, something slow and painful that twisted at David’s heart. Surely this was his fault, too.

“Yeah?” David said, when Matteo didn’t continue.

Now, a long and crackling sigh.

“I almost thought you weren’t going to pick up,” Matteo said.

David squeezed his eyes shut again. He could almost see it against the backs of his eyelids, the way those words drove a fissure into his heart, right down the middle. Cleanly in half. And yet what right did it have to do that, really? David had almost thought he wouldn’t pick up, either.

“I don’t think I’d blame you, if you hadn’t,” Matteo said, very quietly.

David leaned his back against the bathroom wall and slid to the ground. His knees had gone weak.

“Why not?” he could only whisper.

“On Saturday,” Matteo said. “I should have… I should have asked you to stay.”

If David hadn’t already been sitting down, the words would have knocked him off his feet.

The thing was, it shouldn’t have surprised David. It shouldn’t have surprised him at all. His silence, the utter inscrutability of it - of course that was what it meant. Of course it was because Matteo didn’t know how to say what he wanted out loud - how to ask for it. He was just that kind of person, the kind of person who felt so much and so deeply sometimes it was too vast to be shaped into words. David was that kind of person, too. And that was why it shouldn’t have surprised him. He should have understood Matteo, he should have understood him completely and implicitly, because he had thought that as the one thing he was capable of doing; when they first met he had found it intoxicatingly easy.

But there was what he understood about Matteo, and then there was what he understood about people. He knew Matteo, it was true. He could trust in that much, even when there was so little else inside himself he could rely on. Still, to use the precious knowledge of a boy he’d gathered over a painstaking month to overcome the lessons an entire lifetime had taught him - it was like pitting a raindrop against the whole ocean.

A whole ocean he could not drink, and a drop of water that brought him back to life.

“It’s okay,” David said. “I mean - I get it.”

“No,” Matteo said, with a force that took David aback. “No, it’s not.”

“Okay.” David wrapped his free arm around himself. “So why didn’t you?”

“Because…” Here, there was a short laugh. He could imagine Matteo running his hand through his hair, turning his gaze to the ground in that way of his that made David want to reach out and tip his chin up with his thumb. His fingers twitched. “God. Never mind.”

“What is it?” He had to know, now.

“It’s stupid.” Matteo was shaking his head, perhaps. Or squeezing his hand into a fist by his side. Maybe both. Maybe neither.

“I’ll tell you if it is,” David said. “Remember?”

He remembered. The memory of it wrapped itself around David, brought him back to yesterday when he was lying on his couch and he’d nearly dropped his phone on himself because his hands were trembling so badly. The pounding of his heart when he said it; the calm that washed over him, simultaneously, to know that he meant it. He wondered if Matteo felt it, too.

“I didn’t want to hear you say no,” Matteo said.

David pressed his forehead to his knees. He bit his lower lip, hard.

Fucking hell.

The horrible thing was, he couldn’t blame Matteo for thinking that he would, not even a little bit. When had he ever given him reason to think otherwise?

And if Matteo had asked, he couldn’t even be sure he wouldn’t have said no. What he wanted and what he had to do - they were different things, they were always different things. And so it was a war he fought every day of his life, one that had no end because it had no winners.

Maybe he would have said nothing at all. That was the last thing he’d done when Matteo had asked him not to leave. He remembered that last message, every word of it. Remembered his own inadequacy in the face of it.

It hit him, then, like a hammer to the heart, how hard it had been for Matteo to send something like that. How brave. And now the shame rose up in his chest - crawled up his throat and threatened to suffocate him.

“That’s not stupid,” David managed to say, because he said he would, and it was true.

A long pause. David had the vague feeling they both had to catch their breaths.

“I still feel stupid,” Matteo said, after a while.

“Why?”

He asked Matteo that a lot. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t often want to hear the answers to his questions, especially if he thought he already knew what they were. With Matteo, he always wanted to hear the answer. Even when he thought he knew it. Sometimes, especially then.

“I…” Matteo’s speech was halting, fragmented. David waited for him to put the pieces together. “I’ve been Googling it. The transgender thing.”

David’s heart twisted at the word that stumbled over Matteo’s tongue. He felt named; he felt naked. He almost didn’t want to hear what would come after it.

“I wanted to - to know the right things to say before I called you,” Matteo said. “But I don’t know - I don’t know. There’s so fucking much I don’t know. I wish I knew what to say but I just don’t.”

Somehow, David hadn’t expected that, either.

“So why did you call me?”

The question slipped out of him before he could think about it, and as soon as it left his lungs he realized how harsh the question sounded in the air - like the jagged edge of a rusting knife. It might cut at Matteo. He ached to think of it, to think of all the ways he’d already cut him with his words and actions. But he hadn’t meant it that way. He hadn’t meant it to sound like it wasn’t okay for Matteo not to know what to say. Like he hadn’t wanted Matteo to call him.

It was the opposite, rather. He just didn’t understand why this was happening - why Matteo was still here - when David had done his damnedest to give him every reason not to be.

He didn’t deserve this.

“I don’t know,” Matteo said. “I guess I just wanted to.”

Like that, it sounded astonishingly simple.

And this was it, wasn’t it? This was what David had noticed about Matteo in the first place, the reason why being in his presence was so breathtaking, so magnetic. Because David had spent years of his life trying to teach himself how to not want things, and when that had failed he’d tried to teach himself how to fight the things he did want with rigid, exacting self-control. It was ingrained in him now, a compulsion to hold this wall up around his dreams, his most secret desires. Even when sometimes it made him so tired he felt he could hardly make it through the day. Even then, even when he didn’t want to hold it up anymore, he still did it. He had to.

And then there was Matteo. This boy who let himself feel, and fear, and dream. The hope inside him burned so desperately bright it nearly blinded David when they’d first met. Witnessing it was like squinting at the sun, watching a bird as its dark shape cut across the light. And god, sometimes it reached heights that scared the shit out of David, how far it had to fall. Yet still, it flew.

And it was fucking magnificent.

“Do you regret it?” David said.

“No.” The word was soft, but immediate.

The sound of it lodged itself somewhere in David’s throat. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

Laura was wrong. He’d known that, of course. But now he knew who she should have named. The bravest boy in the world was Matteo. There was no other answer.

It made him want to be brave, too. Made him want to believe that one day, he could also learn how to fly.

“I want to see you,” David said.

But before you flew, you had to leap.

“You do?” Matteo’s voice was hushed. The disbelief in it made David’s gut prickle.

“Only if you want to,” David said.

“I want to.”

David let out a breath.

“It doesn’t have to be now,” he said. “Or any time soon.”

A long, heartstopping pause.

And then -

“I know,” Matteo said.

And the incredible thing was, David believed him.

-

_Tuesday 13:56_

Today wasn’t a bad day. David had woken up and known that. Sometimes it was impossible to know if a day was going to be bad or not. Sometimes it didn’t hit you until you rolled out of bed or left the house or got on the bus. Sometimes it didn’t hit you at all until you got to the end of it and looked back and realized with a detached sort of astonishment the extent of your own misery through it all. So he liked mornings like these because it meant he knew what he was in for, good or bad. If it was bad and he was prepared for it, he didn’t have to hate himself for letting his life get the best of him.

For these not so bad days, the script of his routine was simple. A run in the morning, with an extra half hour tacked onto the end because today he actually had the energy for it. Getting back to the flat just in time for breakfast with Laura before she had to leave for work, a silent but comfortable affair. A quick shower, because he had no patience or need for self-indulgence today. A short bus ride to the store, to buy lunch and toilet paper. Easy things. Good, productive things.

And when he got home, before he started that afternoon’s studying he opened his sketchbook and picked up his pencil, and he filled the next empty page with the images that were stuck inside his head. A young girl on a bicycle. The gleaming wheels on a passing bus. A single leaf on the branch of a tree, a green jewel fluttering in the wind. He didn’t let himself think about what any of it meant. The point of this wasn’t to find meaning. The point was to exist, and to be okay with that. He still didn’t quite know what that felt like, but maybe he could believe that he was getting there, and today that felt like enough.

The thing he liked most about his sketchbook was that it was for him, only for him. Within these worn pages there was no pressure to create something worthwhile, no need to worry about pleasing anyone or anything but the hunger for beauty inside of him. It was the only place in the entire world where he could let himself want things without fear, because here no one would ever see the stuff of his dreams and he liked it that way. He liked this feeling of not being seen. There weren’t very many places in life you could have something like that.

Then again, he thought as he flipped through the earlier pages of the sketchbook, there was exactly one person in this world who _had_ seen the stuff of his dreams. And that hadn’t been so bad, either.

It frightened him, still, the way Matteo made him feel things he hadn’t realized he was capable of feeling. It had been disconcerting, mostly, in the early days - this feeling that there were parts of him he was only just beginning to learn the existence of. He’d thought he’d known who he was, before then. He’d thought he’d discovered all there was to know; he’d thought he’d finished drawing the map of himself long ago.

It didn’t disconcert him, anymore, to think that perhaps he hadn’t after all. And that frightened him too.

Having remembered that Matteo existed - though perhaps that was a lie; as if he could have ever forgotten in the first place - David also remembered that he hadn’t checked Instagram in a few days. He pulled up the app on his phone. Sure enough, at the top of his feed was a Matteo Monday from yesterday he hadn’t yet seen. His heart leaped as if he hadn’t expected it, as if he didn’t log onto Instagram at least twice a week just to see what Matteo would post next. Still, he truly hadn’t expected _this_ \- this picture of a sandwich grill, a seemingly innocuous image that instantly called to mind a hazily perfect evening from an eternity ago. It felt like it belonged to a different version of him, so improbable was the joy he’d felt, so all-consuming was the warmth burning between his ribs. He’d normally hate to be so presumptuous - not everything was about him; in fact, he’d be perfectly content if nothing were about him at all - but this was Matteo, and so there could be no doubt what it really meant, not for David. With Matteo he felt a great number of things, but doubt about his intentions had never, ever been one of them.

Carefully, he set the phone back on his desk. He leaned back in his chair and turned his eyes to the ceiling, and he let himself smile. The slow spread of it across his face made him feel strangely giddy. Which he should feel silly for, probably.

In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to.

-

_Wednesday 16:12_

David saw Matteo before Matteo saw him. He was sitting on a bench next to a tree, pale grey hoodie pulled over his head and headphones snaking down from his ears to his pocket. From this angle David could see him in perfect profile, edge of his face rimmed with the golden light of the sun. Dark rings under his eyes, whole body slumped over like a deflating balloon - he looked tired. Almost like he could fall asleep right here, if he just closed his eyes. What would it be like, David wondered, to help him sleep at night? To ease the burden from him, just for a little while, just so he could rest for a few more hours? But this was a foolish, pointless dream - he didn’t even know how to help himself with something like that, let alone someone else - and so he cast it away, like so many before it, and walked into Matteo’s field of vision.

He couldn’t fail to notice how Matteo straightened when he caught sight of him, and the change that came over his face at the same time. It wasn’t anything definable - his expression did not flicker - but David could see it, anyway. A certain sort of calm that touched the corners of his eyes, and the gentle dissipation of tension from his shoulders, so slow David doubted anyone else would notice. It made him feel something inside himself to know he could have this effect on someone, and to see it with his own eyes - something he didn’t have the words for, either, but that sparked at his lungs like tinder, that swelled and expanded in his chest until it was almost hard to breathe.

As David slowed to a stop a few paces in front of the bench, Matteo tugged an earbud out. His eyes flickered to the ground, then back up. “Hey.”

“Hey,” David answered.

The corner of Matteo’s mouth twitched up into something that was almost - not quite - a smile. It was so delicate, such a tiny thing. David’s breath caught in his throat.

He wasn’t prepared for this.

The realization hit him squarely in the chest, sudden as it was potent. He’d thought all morning about what he wanted to say to Matteo, had carefully built the dialogue into the script of the day - all the different ways Matteo might respond to him, every best and worst case scenario, and everything in between. But it had been pointless, all of his efforts. When he looked at Matteo for the first time in days - feeling, for the first time, the full weight of that absence; he hadn’t known, or more accurately hadn’t let himself known, just how big it had been - all of his words died on his tongue, and now there was nothing inside his lungs but a fierce and despairing ache.

Then again, this shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him. All of his scripts had a tendency to wither away into dust around Matteo.

“Do you - ” Matteo shrugged, a poor attempt at nonchalance that didn’t work on either of them. “Do you want to sit?”

David swallowed. “Sure,” he said. Carefully, he sat down next to Matteo.

They were silent, for a while. David remembered vividly the last time they had shared the silence. How he had choked on it. It wasn’t that way now, but nor was it easy. It felt - fragile. Like it was meant to be broken. But with what, neither of them knew.

Strange, how you could miss a person who was sitting right next to you.

After a while, Matteo’s leg twitched. David felt it rather than saw it, a restless tremor in the air between them. Matteo’s knee started bouncing up and down, the motion drawing David’s eye before he could stop it from happening. His foot scuffed against the ground. And then he sighed; and a quiet shiver ran down David’s spine.

“So,” Matteo said. “Everything good?”

David nodded. “Yeah,” he said. It wasn’t a lie. The limbo of the past few days, caught in a place of inaction, waiting for a sign, a word, a breath - it hadn’t been that bad, all things considered. He’d lived through worse. “And you?”

“Yeah, not bad.” Matteo shrugged again, and tugged a hand through his hair. “I, um, I talked to Hans earlier today.”

This, and Matteo Googling “transgender”. There was no pretending David didn’t know what it meant. “Okay,” he said, fighting to keep his expression neutral. He didn’t think he succeeded.

“I actually - ” Matteo’s face screwed up. “I did something really stupid. Again.” He looked at David out of the corner of his eye. “I told you it’s what I do.”

David had a feeling he might know what this stupid thing was, and he would be lying if he didn’t admit the thought made the back of his neck prickle with an old, familiar fear. “What is it?” he made himself ask anyway. The question fought him all the way up his throat. It was a miracle his voice didn’t tremble.

Matteo bit his lip, and averted his gaze. “I told him you were trans.”

David knew it was coming, but it was still a punch to the sternum to hear it out loud. His feet twitched in his shoes - it took all of his self-control to keep them planted on the ground. He closed his eyes, briefly. Breathed. The world was still moving under him; he was still alive. And Matteo telling him this - it meant something. He took that thought, and repeated it to himself until the words almost felt real again. It took him a while, but finally he managed to nod once. “Okay.”

Matteo exploded into sudden motion, leaning forward to let his head drop into his hands. His fingers clutched at his hair. “But he promised not to tell anyone else,” he said. “And I know, now, that I shouldn’t have done that, because it should be your choice who knows and who doesn’t. Like with people knowing that I - that I’m gay. I don’t know why I didn’t think about that. I just don’t think a lot of the time. You’re probably used to it by now.”

David didn’t think that he was, mostly because he didn’t think it was true that Matteo didn’t think. Rather, he had the feeling that maybe sometimes he thought too much, with so many words clamoring inside his skull they drowned each other out. He saw it, because that was what he saw inside his own head, too.

He exhaled, long and low.

“Thanks,” he said. “For telling me.”

Because as hard as it was to hear, he was glad, ultimately, to know. It was so much better than not knowing, than having to guess at who had found out, what they would do with the piece of him he most wanted to protect from the world. Years and years ago, he’d been terrible at predicting the future. Now he was too good at it. And honestly, he didn’t want to be. So not having to guess was infinitely preferable.

And honestly - honestly it warmed something inside of him, though he’d never say it out loud, to hear Matteo say that he was gay. That he knew himself well enough to decide that a word like that belonged to him, and to share that with someone else - with David. Pride welled up in his throat, alongside something more secret, more selfish; something he couldn’t help. Hearing this probably meant more to him than Matteo would ever know.

“I’m going to keep doing shit like that, though,” Matteo said. “I know I am. And then you - you’ll - ”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. David knew exactly how it ended.

But it was astonishing how convinced Matteo was that he would ruin things when it wasn’t him who had done the ruining before now, not at all. Between the two of them, David knew without a doubt who was capable of greater devastation. He’d wreaked such havoc over the years. Over himself - over the people he loved. So who else could it be but him? His whole life he’d been burning down bridges and running from the flames that threatened to drag him into hell and never let him go. He’d never known relief, never found the pool of water that would soothe his charred soul, only the oceans that drowned him. He lived with fire licking at the back of his neck, ceaseless, always. And to live, he let everything else burn down in his stead. That was just what he did. That was the weight of what he carried.

Matteo - he didn’t burn down bridges. The very fact that they were sitting next to each other, here, in this moment, was proof that he was the one who rebuilt them from the ashes with his own bare hands.

David didn’t say that, though.

He couldn’t.

“I won’t,” he said instead.

Somehow, that was much easier to admit out loud.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t that much of a surprise. Because the fact that he had told Matteo in the first place was proof to himself that he wouldn’t, not this time. Either way, there was no going back. He couldn’t take back what he’d shared even if he wanted to.

And as terrifying as that was, he didn’t want to.

The revelation washed over him slowly. Like he was floating in an empty pool.

Matteo’s throat worked. He wanted to believe him, David knew. He also knew why he couldn’t.

“Why did you, then?” Matteo said. “Before?”

There were so many things he could be referring to. They all flashed before David’s eyes, all the fires he’d started to escape the fires that terrified him, almost too many to even count. He was sick of it, sick of his own self, his capacity to hurt, to damage, to burn. Hadn’t he learned in primary school not to fight fire with fire? But he didn’t know how to fight it with anything else. He’d been reborn in the heart of a flame that had wanted to consume him from the very first moment of his new life. His own bones had been on fire the whole damn time.

And thus, the bridges he’d burned. The thing about burning down bridges was that it meant no one could follow him. Not unless they wanted to risk drowning.

He always thought he preferred it that way, or at least that it was better that way. It was better, because then he wouldn’t have to know what it would mean not to be followed. If he was the one who did not stay, he did not have to know what it meant to be the one who was left behind. It’d always felt like he was giving himself the power of choice. Of freedom.

Somehow it never occurred to him that at the end of the day, not having a choice and not allowing himself to have it pretty much amounted to the same thing.

“I guess…” David let his hands fidget in his lap, for a bit. “I guess I just didn’t want things to change.”

“Things changed, though,” Matteo said.

The words were quiet; the way they echoed in David’s head was deafening.

“I…” David couldn’t bear to look at Matteo. “I know. What I mean is, I didn’t want to find out what would happen when things did change.”

“Why not?”

It wasn’t an accusation, but honestly, it might as well have been.

David tilted his head back and stared at the sky. The vibrant blue of it made his head hurt. “They always do,” he said. “And - never in a good way.”

“What do you mean?”

His eyes burned.

“I keep losing things,” he said.

Matteo didn’t answer. Maybe he was waiting for David to say more. To explain. And he knew how inadequate these words were, how they didn’t even begin to touch the mountain of reasons David had built a whole way of living around. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to explain. For once, he longed to tell Matteo what he could, longed to make him understand why he’d left. To lay out the entirety of his life for him, piece by piece - every word, every happiness and every tragedy that had beaten David into the shape of the person he was today.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to do that; it was that he genuinely did not know how. He’d never done it before. He didn’t know if words existed for the ocean of loneliness that divided the halves of his heart.

“I’m sorry,” Matteo said.

Laughter burst out of David, sharp in his lungs. It wasn’t born from mirth.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” David said, honestly; wretchedly.

“But…” Matteo exhaled. “I wish you could keep the things you wanted.”

No one had ever said anything like that to David before. It stunned him into silence. Stole his whole breath away.

How many times had he felt like he couldn’t breathe, around this boy? And every time, it felt less like dying and more like coming back to life.

“Can I ask you something?” Matteo said.

David stroked the inside of his wrist with his thumb, absently. “What?”

Matteo swallowed.

“Why did you come back?”

He didn’t think he’d ever hear anyone ask him that. He didn’t think anyone would ever have a reason to.

Yet the answer came to him easily. He hardly even had to think about it. Because the thought of Matteo walking away from him - that was hard. That had almost drowned him.

But walking away from Matteo - in the end, that had been even harder.

He hadn’t drowned, under the weight of it. He’d forgotten how to breathe entirely.

And this time it didn’t feel like coming back to life at all.

“I don’t know,” David said. He glanced at Matteo. Saw Matteo looking at him, already. He made himself keep looking. “I guess I just wanted to.”

Matteo huffed out the softest laugh. God; what a precious thing.

“I’m - ” Matteo bit his lip. “I’m glad.”

Neither of them looked away. And inside the ocean of Matteo’s eyes, David found truth.

It was overwhelming.

“I am too,” he breathed. He hadn’t the strength to say it louder. Still, he had to say it.

Still, he wanted to say it.

And the look on Matteo’s face, at the words - eyes wide, as if he was afraid that if he so much as blinked it would rip this moment apart - was so unbearably sweet, David wanted to let his heart crack open bit by bit so all of that sweetness would pour right into him.

At last he managed to tear his gaze away. He was afraid if he looked too much, he’d never move again.

“So,” he said. He hugged his arms loosely around himself. “What did you talk to Hans about?”

It was a stark subject change, but an important one to him. He could feel Matteo’s hesitation, a breakable thing. But David didn’t want him to spare the details. If they had talked about him, he needed to know.

“I had questions,” Matteo said finally.

And Hans was the only other person he knew from the LGBT community, and surely a real person was a better resource than Google. Honestly, David couldn’t even begrudge him. He’d been there before.

“What kind of questions?” David asked.

“Well,” Matteo said. “He thought I wanted to ask about lube.”

David coughed out a laugh, caught off guard. “You’re kidding.”

“No,” Matteo said with a rueful smile. “I actually wanted to ask questions about… how it all works, I guess. But then - ”

He took in a sharp breath.

“But then I realized the only person I wanted to ask them to was you,” he said.

David tried to wrap his head around what Matteo was telling him. The sheer magnitude of it. Trying made him dizzy.

“Why didn’t you?” he said.

He didn’t ask it because he wanted Matteo to feel bad for not asking. He asked because he wanted to know if Matteo also knew that David’s answers would never be enough.

“Because they’re not very good questions,” Matteo said in a whisper. “And I don’t think you should have to deal with questions that aren’t good if you don’t want to.”

David’s fingernails bit into the skin of his palm.

“And if I want to?” he whispered back.

The words came out of him so softly and the silence that stretched after them was so long he thought maybe Matteo didn’t hear him. He couldn’t bring himself to say them again.

He didn’t know what else to say.

So the silence stayed.

And then -

“Do you?”

There it was again, that quiet awe, naked in Matteo’s voice, shivering. David didn’t deserve it. And yet he couldn’t stop his heart from surrounding itself with it, swaddling itself with its warmth. He wanted to take as much of it as Matteo would give him. And he couldn’t stop himself from doing that, anymore. He just couldn’t.

“It feels important,” David said. “Knowing how to answer questions.”

Maybe it was possible, after all, to tell the story of his life, if someone was helping him do it.

“You’re good at it,” Matteo said.

David had to bite back a laugh. “If you say so.”

Matteo didn’t bite his lip. He didn’t hold anything back at all.

He just smiled. And it seemed so simple.

And maybe it was.

“So,” Matteo said. “I’ve been, um, reading some stuff.”

David searched his face. “About transitioning, you mean?”

Matteo nodded. “It sounds... hard. Not like that, but I mean - all the barriers. All the rules, and the laws. And then people just being stupid as fuck about it.”

David choked on his laughter, despite himself. That certainly was a word for it.

“I mean…” Matteo shrugged helplessly, as if not sure how to put this. “Isn’t it a lot to go through?”

“What do you mean?” David asked.

“I don’t know.” Matteo pulled both his hands through his hair agitatedly. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to talk about it. About - about me. You know?”

He knew.

“So don’t you think it’s hard?” Matteo looked up at him. “To have to deal with people who might not ever understand? What would it be like to just - not?”

David let himself imagine it, for a moment. Just for a moment. What it would have been like in his old life, to keep this all to himself. He’d never have to explain himself, never have to try to find the words for answers he didn’t have. Never have to fight every damn second just to exist as himself.

Oh, to be a person no one would ever stare at or even spare a second glance for, simply because on first sight they would think that they understood him, and what did it matter that they never would?

To not obsess over what other people thought about him and what he did and how he talked. Or, more likely - to obsess over it even more, and to suffer for it in complete and devastating silence.

To pretend he owned an identity that he hadn’t asked for. To carry the weight of that for the rest of his life, this thing that didn’t belong to him at all.

To never be seen, because he would never be recognized.

“I think I get what you’re saying,” David said. “Explaining who you are - it really is hard. Sometimes… Sometimes I wish people would just - get it. And I could just live my life, and they could just live theirs.”

He met Matteo’s eyes.

“So yeah, it is hard,” David said. “But pretending to be someone I’m not… That’s harder.”

The words sat heavily between them. Suspended in silence.

“Oh,” Matteo exhaled.

“Oh?” David echoed.

“You’re brave,” Matteo said, very softly.

David’s first instinct was to push the word away from himself. It didn’t belong to him; it shouldn’t. But he could feel Matteo looking at him. And the evenness of his voice, the honesty he recognized in it - that did mean something to him. So he relaxed his hands which had curled into fists, and he forced himself to breathe - breathe the sound of the word in.

It sank in his chest, between the bones of his ribcage. It didn’t fit as badly as he thought it might.

He didn’t know if he could ever make a home for it in there. Still. He could try. Matteo made him want to try.

He wanted to trust Matteo more than he distrusted himself.

David huffed out a laugh. “Wow.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Matteo’s head turn toward him. “What?”

“I thought you were going to ask me something else, honestly,” David said.

A beat of silence. “What did you think I was going to ask?”

“If I…” David frowned. He didn’t want to say it out loud. “If I was still - ”

Before he could finish the sentence, Matteo was already shaking his head.

“You already told me the answer to that,” he said. “And besides…”

David looked up at him. “Yeah?”

Matteo met his gaze steadily. Something crystallized in his eyes. Something like conviction.

“I’m not into girls,” he said. “I think I’ve known that for a long time.”

“Okay,” David said. Suddenly his heart was beating so fast.

“I’m into boys,” Matteo said. “And I’m into you.”

His eyes. His wonderful, beautiful eyes. They were depthless; endless. David could tumble inside them and never climb out, and never want to.

He knew he should answer. He shouldn’t keep Matteo waiting, should give him the confirmation he wanted, yearned for. But he had no words, anymore. None at all. He only had his body and his hands. When all else abandoned him, he still had the language of touch; of silence. And he’d never met anyone who spoke it as well as Matteo did.

So he brought his palm to Matteo’s jaw, as gentle a touch as he could make it. He tucked a piece of Matteo’s hair behind his ear, brushed his fingers against his temple. And he leaned in, and kissed him. The softest brush of lips; the quietest exhale against his mouth. Matteo’s hand came up to cup the back of his head, and to press him closer. The silence that roared in his ears made him feel at peace - at home.

And here they were, kissing under the setting sun, the sky, the whole universe itself. To be seen and to be recognized. And for once, for the first time in his whole entire life, he wanted to be so badly.

They broke apart slowly, their foreheads still touching. Matteo reached up, took hold of David’s hand; brought it down and cradled it to his chest between both his palms.

“So now what?” Matteo said. His eyes were still closed.

“What do you mean?” David wanted to hear him say it; he needed it.

“Are we doing this?” Matteo murmured. The words tingled against David’s mouth.

David couldn’t help but smile. “This?”

There was no way Matteo could see his face. And yet he smiled, too. “Yeah, this.”

“Do you want to?” David said.

And now Matteo opened his eyes. “Do you?”

David bit his lip.

“I want to,” David said. “I really want to.”

It was easier to say out loud than he thought it would be.

“Okay.” Matteo nodded. “Me too.”

He glanced down, then, at their joined hands.

“Your fingers are cold,” he said.

He brought David’s hand up to his lips, and parted them. He exhaled, breath warm against David’s skin. And he pressed his mouth to every bone of his knuckles, one by one.

And David felt as if his whole chest might split open.

-

_Wednesday 22:06_

Laura got home late from work, dropping her bag like shedding the weight of the world from her shoulders and falling face first onto the couch. David had a plate of dinner ready for her, leftovers from the stir fry they’d cooked together over the weekend, and he set it carefully on the floor next to her dangling hand. The smell of it, hot and greasy in all the best ways, permeated the room easily. It was a true testament to her exhaustion that she barely even twitched in the face of it.

“Thanks,” she said into the couch, voice muffled. “I just… I need a moment.”

David sat on the floor next to the couch, cross-legged. “Should I ask how work went?”

“No.”

David patted at her shoulder gingerly. “My condolences.”

“Much appreciated.”

Laura turned her head, then, and smiled at him. It was a tired, faint thing. But sincere, as most of her smiles were.

“What about you?” she asked. “How was your day?”

David hugged his knees to his chest. He’d thought of how to answer this question since the moment he’d gotten home, when the thoughts in his head had been so light he thought they might float away like runaway balloons if he wasn’t careful, and the thrilling thing was he almost didn’t want to be. He’d let Matteo walk him to his front door, after it got too dark to stay in the park. They hadn’t held hands; they hadn’t touched. They hardly spoke a word the whole way home. That wasn’t a bad thing, though. It’d felt like a silence they both wanted.

And after Matteo mumbled his good bye, he’d turned and walked a few paces before stopping, and turning back around. And he hadn’t been smiling, but there was this softness in his eyes, warm and infinite. Like he didn’t need to smile, in this moment, to tell David all that he felt. And maybe he didn’t. In that moment, David had felt certain he’d never understood anything better than the lines of Matteo’s face.

And he knew that Matteo felt it, too.

He didn’t know how to talk about that, didn’t know how to shape it with words. And he didn’t even know if he wanted to. Hell, part of him wanted to keep those gilded minutes to himself, all to himself. Selfish as it was, and foolish, it only felt right, when it came to Matteo. Whatever it was that was between them, it belonged to them - only them.

So in the end, after all that thinking, he didn’t have an answer for her question, and thus he said nothing at all; only buried his face in his knees, and hugged himself tighter. Then again, this probably said more than words ever could.

He could feel Laura’s eyes on him. He didn’t mind it. Not today.

“He makes you happy, doesn’t he?” Laura said.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and nodded. To let himself do that, right there for the whole world to see, should have scared him. And it did, a little. But a small spot of pleasure bloomed in his chest at the admission, and it diffused through his whole body until his fingertips were warm with it; and he liked this feeling more than he thought he would.

“I’m…” He paused, searching. “I’m grateful.”

He opened his eyes. Laura was looking back at him, studying him carefully.

“Can I tell you something?” she said.

He nodded. He never said no to that question when it came from her.

“I don’t think you need to feel grateful for something like that,” she said.

But he had no idea what to say to that, either.

“Seriously,” she said. Her gaze did not waver from his. “You deserve to be happy.”

Beautiful words, as always. And as always he had no idea how to answer them.

But for the first time in a very long while - he found he didn’t mind that.

“Thanks,” he said.

For the first time, that felt like enough.

Laura’s eyes softened. “I’m happy for you.”

He felt the corner of his mouth tug upward. “Yeah?”

She grinned at him, and ruffled his hair. “Of course, idiot,” she said.

She pushed herself up into a sitting position, picked the plate up from the ground and slid it onto her lap.

“Do you want to put on that movie you’ve been bugging me about?” she said. “The one where Emma Stone plays a Victorian lesbian and fucks the queen of England?”

He shoved at the foot she had dangling near his face. “That can’t seriously be the main appeal of _The Favourite_ for you.”

“The main appeal for me is always lesbians,” Laura said, very seriously.

He could only roll his eyes at her, and smile when she laughed.

-

_Thursday 20:34_

David’s head hurt. He still had three chapters left to review, and then his notes to look over, and then a practice exam to take. Maybe he should take a break. But if he stopped, would he be able to start again?

He had the feeling he’d been asking himself that question for half his damn life.

Slowly he lowered his face until his forehead hit his desk. He tried to remind himself of how good it would be to sleep tonight. When he’d be so fucking exhausted his brain would be literally incapable of functioning anymore, of producing thoughts that just wouldn’t stop. He tried to think, also, of how good it would feel after the exam was over. One step closer to graduating high school, to leaving all of this behind; one step closer to the rest of his life, and never looking back again.

These thoughts didn’t give him strength, exactly. Truth be told, “strong” was perhaps one of the last words he’d ever use to describe himself. But they did remind him that this - all of this - every arduous second, every word seared into his mind, was all for a reason, a reason that would be worth it when he got there. Even if that wasn’t something he could see right now.

David raised his head and squinted at the page in front of him. The words swam in his vision, became a dizzying blur against the blank whiteness of the page. Fuck. Maybe he should take a break after all.

As if the universe was listening to him, his phone began to vibrate on his desk.

He felt his heart knock painfully against his ribs at the sound, equal parts startled and thrilled. Calm down, he told himself, it could be Laura, or it could be anyone, or it could be no one at all. And then he turned his phone over and looked down at the screen and saw that it was none of those options; it was Matteo. Of course it was Matteo.

He accepted the call and brought the phone up to his ear. “Hey,” he said. He hadn’t spoken in some hours, and even to his own ears it was clear how worn down his voice was, how heavy this single word felt as it dropped from his tongue. He wondered how it sounded to Matteo.

“Hi,” Matteo said. In Matteo’s voice, the word sounded soft, and forgiving.

David wanted to live inside the sound of that syllable. Wanted to close his eyes and soothe the aches of his heart inside of it. Wanted to swim in it forever.

“Everything good?” Matteo said.

David closed his eyes, briefly. He was right, wasn’t he? He wasn’t strong at all.

“I’m studying for tomorrow,” he said.

They didn’t speak, for a while. Yet David wasn’t waiting for what Matteo would say next. That wasn’t the point - it had never been. This was something he’d learned about Matteo from the first moment they’d met. How to listen without speaking. How much there was to be understood in the spaces between words. Before they met David had thought himself the only person in the world who was fluent in the language of silence. As it turned out, he still had a lot to learn.

He wanted to soak every bit of it in.

At last, Matteo let out a breath.

“I wanted to ask if you… Would you like me to pick you up tomorrow? After the exam?”

David blinked.

“Yeah, of course,” he said. “I’d like that.”

And the world didn’t end, when he admitted it out loud. It kept spinning.

It made his head spin, too.

“Cool,” Matteo said.

“Yeah, totally.”

“See you tomorrow, then.”

“Bye.”

The line went silent. David let his phone fall to the desk. He hugged his arms around himself tightly, as if he might unravel if he let go; and shit, maybe that wouldn’t even be so bad.

He pressed a hand to his cheek. His skin was burning hot. Like the heat of the sun was touching his face. He swallowed this feeling down, let it wash down his throat - reveled in it. He almost didn’t recognize himself, like this.

But waiting really was worth it, in the end. He’d never seen anything so clearly.

-

_Friday 13:36_

The exam came and went. David walked out of the room with the muscles of his back aching and his mind thoroughly wrung out, but ultimately the relief of finishing drowned everything else out. He’d done his very best, laid it all down on the page; and that was all he could ask for.

Leonie was waiting by the door when he got out. “Hey,” she said as she fell into step next to him.

“Hey,” he said with a small smile. He hadn’t seen her a lot over the last few weeks. He was glad, though, that after everything that had happened - after everything he’d done - she at least still wanted to talk to him. “How do you think that went?”

Leonie stretched her arms above her head and sighed. “I’m just glad it’s over,” she said. “Sports next week and then we’re free, yeah?”

David looked down at the ground. “Right.” She didn’t seem angry at him, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything, in his experience. “Um… How are you, anyway?”

He could feel her looking at him. He couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes.

“I’m okay,” she said.

He nodded. “And, uh, how’s Sara?”

“You could always ask her yourself,” Leonie said, not unkindly.

David bit his lip. “Would she be okay with that?”

Leonie seemed to mull it over for a bit.

“Yeah,” she said. “I think she would.”

“Oh,” David said. “Okay.”

He wasn’t used to hoping for the best case scenario.

“Well…” Leonie shrugged. “What about you? How are you doing?”

He let himself think over the last week, let the memories flood his brain for a moment. The feeling of baring the pieces of his heart to a boy, thinking he might lose them to him entirely. And then getting it back from the boy, and fitting it back into his chest, and slowly learning what it was like to have a heart in one piece. And it was still cracked, still fragile; but it was whole. It was.

“I’m okay,” he said. He meant it.

“And…” She hesitated. “And Matteo?”

It didn’t surprise him that she knew. What surprised him was that he didn’t mind.

“I think so,” he said.

She laughed, a little. “You think so?” She nudged him in the arm with her elbow. “Such confidence.”

David smiled, mostly out of relief. He stuck his hands in his pockets and tilted his head back toward the ceiling. “I don’t know,” he said. “Things are still kind of hard, I guess.”

She hummed tunelessly. “Really?”

“There’s just…” He swallowed. “There’s so much I want to say to him.”

About where he had come from, and where he wanted to go. About himself; his whole life. And about the feelings inside himself, too, the countless things Matteo’s mere presence pulled out from the bottomless well of his core, everything he wanted to give to him so he would understand just how much of it there was.

And he didn’t know how to say any of it.

David straightened and turned to look at Leonie. She met his gaze, eyes searching.

“You should be patient with yourself,” she said. “I think he wants to be patient, too.”

He stared at her, taken aback. “You think so?”

Leonie glanced away. “Honestly, I’m not his biggest fan,” she said. “But I think he cares about you. And the people who care about you want to be there for you.”

It almost sounded like she was talking about someone else.

Still. Coming from her, this meant a lot. It did.

David let himself break into a grin. “Wow,” he said. “Who knew you were such a sap?”

Leonie rolled her eyes and shoved at his shoulder. “Shut up.”

But she was smiling, too.

They were approaching the stairwell, now. He looked down toward the entrance of the school. There were so many people around him and Leonie, so much talking, so much laughter. And then he caught sight of Matteo, hands in his pockets and head craned back to look at him, and as a smile unfolded across Matteo’s face he could feel the smile on his face widen too. And the world grew quieter around them, and his heart grew quieter, too. It wasn’t that everyone else faded away - it wasn’t that he could just ignore they existed. But when his gaze met Matteo’s, it was almost like the rest of it didn’t matter, as much. Nothing could be as relevant as the gentleness of Matteo’s eyes.

David would remember this feeling, he knew. How for a second, just for a second, everything seemed frozen in time. After the moment passed, the rest of the future would be waiting for him. He would walk down the stairs and meet Matteo, and they’d take the bus home together and he would lean his head against Matteo’s shoulder because it was there. They would go into Matteo’s room and lie back on his bed. Slowly, carefully, he would take Matteo’s hand in his. And he would explain, haltingly, the truth of his life that he wanted Matteo to know, which really meant all of it. It would be hard, sometimes. It would be the hardest thing he’d ever done. And the sun would slowly set, and no one would move to turn on the light so they would be lying in a darkness that was almost complete. And Matteo would hold his hand the whole time. And when he was done with his story, Matteo would put his palm on his face, and tell him his.

Or - the very worst could happen too, after this moment. His darkest nightmare come to life. Everyone’s eyes on him - only on him. There would be no escape except for the one he made for himself, and he would make it, carve it out of these hallways with his own hands. The thoughts would leave his head; his whole heart would go up in flames. He would have nothing inside him but muscle memory, and the only thing his muscles remembered how to do would be to run. And so he would run. He would run and he would run, and when there was no more road left to run down he would turn around in helpless despair, and see that Matteo had followed him the whole time. And it would ruin him, to know the lengths Matteo would take to follow him to hell. But it would build him back up again, too. And he would let it.

Every road he could see, every path he could take - they all led back to him. Him with the endless ocean in his eyes.

So what did David have to fear?

The thoughts in his head had never been so quiet. He had never been so sure of anything in his whole life, in this one perfect moment.

With Matteo’s eyes on his, he stepped onto the stairwell.

And he didn’t look back.

For once, he didn’t want to.

 

**Author's Note:**

> -I would be remiss if I didn't name A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara as a major stylistic inspiration for this fic. No, you absolutely don't have to read this book to understand this fic [in fact i would NOT recommend it for the faint of heart skdjfnsdk] but I definitely drew some heavy inspiration for a couple of sections in this, for better or for worse lol.
> 
> -I'm not German, so if there are any inaccuracies on that front please don't hesitate to let me know.
> 
> -[5/30/2019] Check out some of the AMAZING things my friends have made inspired by this fic [I'M LOVE YOU ALL SO SO MUCH MWAH <333]: [this collage](https://tristealven.tumblr.com/post/185210875124/its-called-a-collage-maybe-i-made-it-for) by Elina, [these edits](https://pronouncingitwang.tumblr.com/post/185217389904/david-touched-his-palm-to-the-surface-of-the-wood) by Crystal, and [these edits](https://kapplebougher.tumblr.com/post/185239707534/happy-birthday-sarah-canonicallyanxious-i) by Alina!
> 
> -Find me on [tumblr](http://canonicallyanxious.tumblr.com) or [twitter](http://twitter.com/canonlyanxious)!
> 
> And that's all i've got! Thank you so much for reading! <3


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